Is it possible to achieve this credit with a naturally ventilated building located in northern California
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Schools-2009 IEQc10: Mold Prevention
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IEQ 10 / Natural Ventalation
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Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11474 thumbs up
March 11, 2010 - 8:55 pm
Sure, there is nothing that would immediately rule that out. No. Cal. is a big place—is it a particularly wet area?
Are there any particular sticking points you're worried about?
You could argue that in a cool, wet climate, this credit is quite important to achieve.
Thomas Burnham
AssociateLoisos + Ubbelohde
32 thumbs up
March 12, 2010 - 12:54 pm
My concern is the requirement "Provide heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and controls designed to limit space relative humidity to 60% or less during all load conditions, both occupied and unoccupied." there is no language about exceptions for naturally ventilated buildings.
The relative humidity in CZ2 does not exceed 60%, which falls in the acceptable humidity standards for the credit. Our engineers have done a psychrometric analysis to support this assertion. So I guess my real question is: Are projects in climate zones that do not exceed 60% relative humidity exempt from requiring humidity controls?
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11474 thumbs up
March 18, 2010 - 1:32 pm
I checked with Bob Kobet, our guest expert on this credit—so this is not an official GBCI response, but he's been pretty involved in this credit.
He said he'd never been asked this question, but in short, it seems like that should work, i.e., mechanical ventilation would not be required. His caveat was that the design should meet all the requirements embedded within ASHRAE 62, not only psychrometrics, but also calculations related to the effectiveness of ventilation distribution—stuff like are the spaces washed sufficiently, is the stack action strong enough, is the window-to-wall ratio sufficient? (Stuff that would be covered by IEQp1.)